"Well, I was studying to be a pastor when
we first started dating. And I took my religious studies very,
very seriously. Even though we were falling in love, I was
determined that we weren't going to have premarital sex. We
became engaged and I loved her even more than before, but I stuck to my
principles. And then about six months later I was ordained and we
were married. No big church wedding, thank the Lord, just a small
private ceremony. And then, on our wedding night, well . .
. I don't know how to put this . . . I discovered that she was . . . a
man. I almost died right on the spot. Can I get an
annulment?"

As bizarre as Jeffs' story sounds, it not only happened, but it
happened in a small town in Central Texas. And, really, it's a
wonderful illustration, because this was a person whose marriage was
both void and voidable.

Void and voidable? Those are just legal terms for the grounds
that you must have to get an annulment in Texas. Unfortunately,
most people who are thinking of getting an annulment don't meet the
requirements, and end up getting a divorce. And many people who
are seeking annulments are Catholic, and don't understand that a civil
annulment is not the same thing as a religious annulment.

So what are the grounds for annulment of a marriage in Texas?
They're divided into two different groups: void marriages and
voidable marriages. Void marriages are marriages that never could
have been, and voidable marriages are marriages that never should have
been.

VOID MARRIAGES

There are two grounds for
declaring a marriage void in Texas: consanguinity and the
existence of a prior marriage.

Consanguinity is just a large word for getting married to
someone who is too close a relative. By that they mean a father or
mother, a child, a brother or sister, an aunt or an uncle, a nephew or
a niece. If you marry that close a relative, then you can seek an
annulment to declare your marriage void.

You can also have your marriage declared void if your spouse was
married to someone else when he/she married you. Obviously, one
of the prerequisites of getting married under our laws is that you have
to be a single person. If you're not, you can't enter into a
marriage contract and the marriage is void.

However . . . if you stay married to the person and they dissolve their
first marriage, then you automatically become married to them when the
first marriage ends. Now let's talk about voidable marriages.

VOIDABLE MARRIAGES

Marriage Under Age 14

If you entered into a
marriage when you were under 14 years of age, then you can get an
annulment. The suit can be brought by your parents, managing
conservator, or even a friend of the court. It must be brought
within 90 days of the date that the petitioner knew of the marriage or
within 90 days of the 14th birthday of the party to the marriage,
whichever is later.

Marriage Under Age 18

If you entered into a
marriage when you were over 14 but under 18, and you did it
without parental consent or a court order, then you can get an
annulment. The suit can be brought by your parents, by your
managing conservator, or by a friend of the court. An annulment
under this section can't be brought if you've turned 18 since you got
married.

Under Influence of Alcohol
or Drugs

Nothing very fancy about this
one. If you were too swacked to know what you were doing and you
woke up in bed the next with morning with a wedding ring on, then you
can get an annulment. However . . . you can't get the annulment
if you've voluntarily cohabited with the person since you sobered
up. In other words, if you ran screaming out of the house, you're
fine. If you rolled over, went back to sleep, woke up, made love
a few times, and then stayed there for a week, you're out of luck.

Impotency

The court can grant an
annulment if either party was permanently impotent at the time of the
marriage. That's what section 6.106 of the Family Code says. I
know, I know . . I didn't know that women could be impotent, either,
but there you are. If it says it in the Texas Family Code, it's
gotta be true.

Seriously, though, what they're talking about here is any condition,
physical or mental, that permanently prevents either party from being
able to have sex. If you got married to someone with the full
expectation of being able to have normal sexual relations with him/her
- or even abnormal - and you then learned that they weren't capable of
doing that, you can get an annulment.

However . . . you can not have known of the condition at the time that
you got married, and you cannot have voluntarily lived with the other
party since you learned of it.

FRAUD, DURESS, OR FORCE

Duress or force are pretty
easy to define here. If you got married to someone because they
threatened to hurt you or they put enormous psychological pressure on
you, then you can get an annulment.

Fraud is a little harder to pin down. If, for instance, you were
to marry a woman with the expectation that she was a normal,
heterosexual female, and she turned out to be a lesbian, that would be
fraud. If someone so grossly misrepresents themselves that you
could have never known who they actually were, that would be
fraud. Basically, it's getting seriously conned by the person you
married.

Now, that doesn't include such things as getting married to a neat,
romantic man and then finding out that he dribbles his dirty laundry
all over the house and never shaves on Sunday. That doesn't
include finding out that your wife actually always hated fishing and
she was just telling you she liked it because you were courting.

If you file under these grounds, you cannot have lived with the person
since you learned of the fraud, or from the time that you were able to
escape whatever duress or force made you marry him/her.

Mental Incapacity

This, again, goes back to
marriage being a contract that's freely entered into by two competent
individuals. The Family Code breaks this down into two
sections. You can get an annulment under these grounds if:

- at the time you were married you lacked the mental capacity to
consent to a marriage or understand the nature of the marriage
relationship because of mental illness or a mental defect; and, you did
not go on voluntarily living with the other person when you had the
mental capacity to understand what you had done. In other words,
if you were severely mentally ill, or had suffered an injury that
diminished your ability to understand marriage, and then you recovered
from it and immediately moved out, then you can get an annulment.

You can also get an annulment under these grounds if:

Your spouse did not have the mental capacity to understand the nature
of marriage or to enter into the marital contract;

and - there was no way that you could have known that your spouse
lacked that capacity;

and - you haven't lived with your spouse since you discovered that
he/she lacked the mental capacity to understand the marriage
relationship or to enter into the marital contract.

Concealed Divorce

Texas has a law that says
that you can't get married within 30 days after you get a
divorce. Basically, that's to give the other party a chance to
get their paperwork from the divorce and reopen the case if they think
they've gotten screwed.

So, if your spouse got married to you LESS than 30 days after he/she
got a divorce, AND there was no way that you could have known about
that, AND you quit living with your spouse right after you found out,
then you can get an annulment. BUT . . . you can't get an
annulment on these grounds after your first wedding anniversary.

Marriage Less Than 72 Hours
After Issuance of the Marriage License

Texas requires people to wait
at least 72 hours after they get their marriage license before they can
get married. If you find out that your spouse didn't wait those
72 hours, you can get an annulment. And you should remember to
actually read things like marriage licenses in the future. They
can be important.

You can't file for an annulment under these grounds, if you've been
married for more than 30 days.

So, those are the grounds for annulment under Texas family law.
If you meet the requirements of any of them, then you can file for an
annulment. If you don't, you have to get a divorce.

What are the major differences? Annulment is quicker.
There's a 60 day waiting period for a divorce. Annulments can be
granted immediately. Another major difference, however, is that
you have to be able to prove your grounds in an annulment
hearing. If you go into court and say you were drunk as a skunk
when you got married or your wife turned out to be as frigid as an
icebox, you've got to prove it. If you can't, no annulment.
In a divorce, you can file, "no fault," and just say that you're
incompatible, and you don't have to prove anything.

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